Hebron Time Bomb: Settlers Who Provoke

It takes thick skin to be a Jewish settler in Hebron. This is the only place in the occupied territories where Jews live in the midst of Arabs, mingling daily with their hostile neighbors. "You have to be real tough to stick it out," says an Israeli government official.

The Jews of Hebron have been proving just how tough they are since 1968, when firebrand Rabbi Moshe Levinger and his American-born wife defied the Israeli government to lead a group of compatriots into the city and establish the first Jewish settlement in the newly occupied territories. Years later, when Levinger's car...